the invisible work

Somebody filled the water bottles last night and stood them in the fridge door. Somebody switched the geyser on before the first alarm. Somebody checked the uniform for tomorrow, saw the missing button, and by morning it was not missing.

None of this was announced. Most of it was never seen. The house simply worked, the way houses do — on a current of sevā that stays underground, noticed only on the rare day it fails.

Here is a quiet experiment for this evening, and it is not about gratitude speeches. At some point, out loud, narrate one piece of invisible work as if commentating: "someone has already folded all this washing — look at that." Nothing more. No lesson attached, no thank-you demanded of anyone.

Children raised in houses where the underground work gets named grow eyes for it. And a person with eyes for invisible work has been given something better than manners — they have been given an accurate picture of how the world actually stays up.

The naming costs one sentence. Say it while passing.